Chinookan

Interior of a Chinookan plankhouse in the 1850s

Chinookan refers to several groups of Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. In the early 19th century, the Chinookan peoples lived along the lower and middle Columbia River in present-day Oregon and Washington. The Chinookan tribes were those encountered by the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1805 on the lower Columbia.

Chinook lifestyle

The Chinookan were not nomadic, similar in western Washington and Oregon. At birth Chinookans would flatten some children's heads by applying pressure with a board, enabling, in turn, a social hierarchy that placed flat-headed community members above those with round heads. This ranking was inherited. Living near the coast of the Pacific Ocean, they were also skilled whale hunters. Owing partly to their non-migratory living patterns, the Chinookan and other coastal tribes had relatively little conflict over land with one another.

Today

Some Chinookan are currently engaged in a continuing effort to secure formal recognition of tribal status by the U.S. Federal government. The U.S. Department of Interior initially recognized the Chinookan as a tribe in 2001. Subsequently, the department first reconsidered and then, in 2002, revoked this status. (For the 2001 recognition, see 66 Federal Register 1690 (2001) at [1]; for the subsequent reversal, see 67 Federal Register 46204 (2002) at [2])

Chinookan groups

Location of Chinookan territory.

Chinookan groups include:

• Cathlamet
• Cathlahmahs
• Chilluckittequaw
• Clatsop
• Chahcowah
• Clackamas
• Clowwewalla
• Cushook
• Echelut (Wishram-Wasco),
• Kilooklaniuck
• Multnomah
• Skillot
• Wahkikum (Wac-ki-cum)
• Wappato
• Wascopa
• Watlata (Cascade or Wishram).

Most surviving Chinookan natives live in the towns of Bay Center, Chinook, and Ilwaco in southwest Washington. Many books have been written about the Chinook, including, Boston Jane: an Adventure.

Famous Chinookans

• Chief Comcomly (1754? - 1830)
• Catherine Troeh (1911-2007) historian, artist, activist and advocate for Native American rights and culture. She was a member and elder of the Chinook tribe and a direct descendant of chief Comcomly.
• Ranald MacDonald (3 February, 1824 – August 24, 1894), a half-Chinookan, born in Fort Astoria, Oregon, to Archibald McDonald, a Scottish Hudson's Bay Company fur trader, and Raven, chief Concomly's daughter, was the first American to teach English in Japan, in 1847-1848, including educating Einosuke Moriyama, one of the chief interpreters that would later handle the negotiations between Commodore Perry and the Tokugawa Shogunate

• Charles Cultee The principal informant employed by Franz Boas for his work published as Chinook Texts

Further reading

• Judson, Katharine Berry (1912). Myths and legends of the Pacific Northwest, especially of Washington and Oregon (DJVU), Washington State Library's Classics in Washington History collection, 2nd, McClurg. OCLC 10363767.  Oral traditions from the Chinook, Nez Perce, Klickitat and other tribes of the Pacific Northwest.

See also

• Chinookan languages

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Chinookan

External links

• Chinook Indian website
• Chinook Nation Official Website

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